


in the depths it is lonely

by hakyeonni



Series: the taekwoon chronicles [1]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Succubi & Incubi, Gen, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-20 22:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9519083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hakyeonni/pseuds/hakyeonni
Summary: taekwoon contemplates what it means to be human... and comes to terms with the fact that he never will be.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is an au of my other au universe—the little incubus series. You should probably read at least until number 4 of incubus before attempting this; before that point some characters are not the same as they are presented here (also this universe won't make sense!)
> 
> Anyway. AU of incubus where Taekwoon isn't an asshole, and falls to Earth for some unknown reason... and gets stuck with 5VIXX as friends. Honestly, it was mainly an excuse to write angel!taekwoon smut. Most of it is just short dribbles and drabbles that I wrote whenever I felt like it; most bits aren't going to be as long as incubus, and it's probably not going to take itself as seriously. Don't expect much plot, either :P Enjoy!

_And the shark, it has tears_  
_And they run down its face_  
_But the shark lives in the water_  
_so no one sees the tears_  
Rammstein – Haifisch

One night, Taekwoon tries to go to Heaven.

It shouldn't be hard. He's done it hundreds of times before. He prefers to stay in Heaven, of course—all angels do—but he's been sent to Earth more times than he can count, and he's always managed to get back into Heaven without fail. Fly high enough and you'll eventually get there, or so he thought.

No matter how high he flies, he can't get there. The pearly gates do not appear. He only realises how high he is when he whips his head around to see a huge metal object flying towards him (a plane, he reminds himself; Sanghyuk had taught him they were called planes) and has to dive to escape it, the wind in his ears shrieking, a horrible noise that makes him grimace. He doesn't understand. He doesn't understand why he suddenly woke up on Earth one day, and he doesn't understand why he can't get back into Heaven. Did he do something wrong? If so, what? It hurts, physically, to be away from his home, a weird ache in his chest. Is this what the others call heartbreak?

Taekwoon turns away from the stars and falls towards Earth, not spreading his wings, just tumbling head-over-heels, the wind whipping his hair about and biting into his skin. He feels so very small in the face of the sky staring back at him, and he wonders where on earth he went so wrong.

//

These are the things Taekwoon knows:

He is an angel, and is as old as the universe.

He used to live in Heaven and served God, as all angels do.

One day, he wakes on a street in a city (that he later finds out is Seoul), his wings bruised and bloody, his skin raw all over.

He doesn't know how he got there.

An immortal finds him, a nephilim called Jaehwan. Perhaps Taekwoon should be afraid of him. They are taught to, up in Heaven; only the seraphim deal with nephilim, and they hunt them, if the tales are anything to go by. But he is kind, and he brushes Taekwoon's hair out of his face and helps him up, and they limp to a building nearby.

Taekwoon is afraid, but he doesn't know how to say it.

The man who opens the door is tall and lithe, his every movement graceful even when he's doing something as mundane as stepping back and letting them in to his apartment, his eyes wide. He's beautiful, and he shimmers, his aura a pretty pale blue. An incubus, Taekwoon realises. It isn't a conscious thought, but more something he just _knows_. Instinct, he supposes. He didn't know angels had it. "What the hell is this?" the incubus says, and his aura flashes as he turns on the nephilim. "An angel?! My apartment isn't a fucking halfway home for true immortals, Jaehwan."

"He was bleeding in the street! What was I meant to do?" Jaehwan replies, helping Taekwoon down onto the sofa to hover over him.

"Um, I don't know, fling him back up to Heaven or something? Don't you think I have enough to deal with?" the incubus replies exasperatedly, coming around to crouch in front of Taekwoon and peer into his face worriedly. "God, they're so creepy."

Taekwoon has never been called creepy before. He has only a vague idea of what it means. Instead of protesting, he looks up at the incubus and reaches out and touches him on the arm. Hakyeon—three hundred and eighty six years since he was turned, twenty-five before that. He's fed recently, on a mortal, a girl whose face Taekwoon can see. Hakyeon's nervous already but the moment Taekwoon touches him that nervousness evolves into alarm.

"What the fuck." Hakyeon stumbles backwards, his eyes wide. "It _read_ me. I could feel it poking around in there."

Jaehwan grimaces. "Yeah, they do that."

"He's bleeding on my sofa," Hakyeon points out, his lips drawn into a thin line.

There's an argument, after that. Hakyeon insists that Taekwoon stay somewhere else but Jaehwan wheedles and pleads and explains that he has nowhere else to go, and that he can't stay with Jaehwan because that is dangerous (why?). He doesn't know who he is, he is injured... Jaehwan keeps going until Hakyeon relents. By that point Taekwoon is very close to passing out where he sits—angels don't need sleep under normal circumstances, but his body needs to heal. Strong arms help him up—Jaehwan again—and guide him into a room with a bed. He collapses face down on it and slips away into sleep.

These are the things Taekwoon doesn't know:

He doesn't know how he got to Earth, or why.

He doesn't know why he was bleeding.

He doesn't know why he can't get back into Heaven, no matter how high he flies.

He doesn't know anything.

//

When he wakes, a full two days later, it's nighttime. Taekwoon can tell that even before he opens his eyes, as all immortals can. He can also feel that Hakyeon isn't in the apartment; there's two other auras, in the lounge room, but they're unfamiliar. The blue of an incubus and the metallic grey of a vampire. That piques his curiosity—he's heard much about vampires, but he's never met one before. He'd never met any other immortals except angels, prior to his Fall.

 _No_. He banishes that thought from his mind. He hasn't Fallen. He still has his wings, and when he sits up he wraps them around himself, as if to confirm that. He is no demon, he knows that much. This is just a... glitch. A temporary misstep.

When he walks into the living room the two immortals look up at him in sync, their expressions a mirror. The incubus is new, he realises with a start—so, so new that Taekwoon can still sense his humanity, hovering at the edges of his aura, turning it from its usual blue (slightly darker than Hakyeon's) to a pale pink. The vampire's eyes are glowing red, although Taekwoon doesn't know why, and his aura is steely and cool.

"Hey," the incubus says casually. "I'm Sanghyuk, and this is Hongbin. Hakyeon told us about you."

Taekwoon blinks at them.

"What's your name?" the vampire prompts, and as it speaks Taekwoon can see its fangs flashing. Not as long as his, of course, but still interesting.

"Taekwoon," Taekwoon replies.

Without speaking another word to them he strides over to the balcony door, opens it smoothly, crouches on the railing and leaps off. He waits until he's close to the ground before opening his wings with a _snap_ and flying away from the strange apartment with strange immortals. He turns his face towards the moon, up towards Heaven, but he doesn't bother trying to go there. Something inside of him is telling him he won't be able to get there, anyway, so there's really no point.

Perhaps he should feel sad at the thought of that. Instead, he just feels empty.

//

"Do you eat food, Taekwoon?"

Taekwoon is balancing on the railing of Hakyeon's balcony. It's where he feels safest, really. One movement and he'll be able to soar away from everything. The wind in his feathers is nice, anyway, and he often sits there for hours with his face turned towards the sun, eyes closed, lost in his own head.

From what Taekwoon has managed to observe, Hakyeon and Sanghyuk live permanently in the apartment. Both Jaehwan and Hongbin visit so often, though, that they might be considered tenants as well. There's another vampire in their friend group, too—Wonshik, Taekwoon hears him referred to—but Taekwoon hasn't seen him. Apparently he doesn't play well with true immortals (another thing Taekwoon had learnt: nephilim, angels, and demons are true immortals. Everyone else is 'false' although by whose definition Taekwoon is not sure). Today Hongbin and Jaehwan are over, and the last time Taekwoon looked over his shoulder to check on them they were playing something called a video game on something called a television. Human magic, if you asked Taekwoon. No one ever did.

It's Sanghyuk sticking his head out onto the balcony, and he's waving something in his hand at Taekwoon. "Well? Do you?"

Taekwoon shakes his head. "I don't need to."

"But you can, right?" replies Sanghyuk, approaching Taekwoon and leaning on the railing next to him.

"Yes."

"Try this, then! It's nice." Sanghyuk offers the food in his hand to Taekwoon, and when he takes it their fingers brush—and he can read everything. Sanghyuk is carrying around a melancholy that would be impossible to discern ordinarily; he's hungry, too, and not for whatever it is he's eating right now. Taekwoon wonders what it's like to live with, that hunger. He just _is_ , but false immortals have to fight to exist.

He obliges Sanghyuk, squinting at the food suspiciously before shoving the whole thing in his mouth. It tastes... chewy, and starchy, but with a nutty flavour. It's not bad, when he shrugs at Sanghyuk as if to say _it's alright_ the incubus practically glows, even though Taekwoon hasn't given him any praise directly.

"Hey, Hongbin!," Sanghyuk calls over his shoulder, "Taekwoon likes peanut butter sandwiches!"

Hongbin appears at the door to the balcony, his arms folded over his chest and a skeptical look on his face. He seems to be keeping his distance from Taekwoon, although Taekwoon isn't really sure why. "Does he like blood?"

"I have not tasted mortal blood," Taekwoon replies, and Sanghyuk's and Hongbin's eyebrows raise in sync.

"You mean... You've tasted immortal blood?"

Taekwoon doesn't reply. He doesn't really want to. Instead, he just turns his face to the wind and falls forward off the balcony, gliding away on the wind, turning his eyes to the streets below to stop himself from looking up, up towards Heaven.

//

In sleep, Hakyeon looks practically angelic.

Taekwoon is sitting on the floor in the corner of Hakyeon's bedroom, playing with his wing feathers absentmindedly, watching Hakyeon as he sleeps. He's not sure why he's here, only that he finds it hard to find things to do in the daytime; the vampires need to sleep during that time, and Hakyeon seems to be on a nocturnal schedule as well. He hasn't worked out how to manipulate Hakyeon's magic box— _television_ , he reminds himself—and he stays away from the kitchen because he'd burnt his hand the first time he tried to use the stove. If this was an ordinary day in Heaven he would have a million and one things to do, but he's not _in_ Heaven, and he can't get back there and he doesn't know why. He's always been a good angel.

"Taekwoon," Hakyeon mutters, sitting up and running a hand through his hair. One eye is still shut, the other cracked open a tad, and he blinks at Taekwoon like he's not sure he's really there. "What are you doing? Can't you sleep?"

"Don't need to." Taekwoon draws his wings closer around himself and dips his head, his hair falling across his forehead.

Hakyeon sighs. "Oh, for God's sake... Come on, then."

Taekwoon doesn't even comment on the blasphemy. He's too busy staring at the way Hakyeon is patting the bed next to him, and, obediently, he gets up and slips into bed beside him, lying there as stiff as a board. Hakyeon huffs, and moves closer to him, resting his head on Taekwoon's chest and flinging an arm around his middle.

He nearly rears off the bed at the sudden contact. Being thrust into someone's mind unexpectedly is not always pleasant, especially as Hakyeon is sleepy and muddled; all he's thinking of is how soft Taekwoon's wings are, how much they remind him of Jaehwan's, how much he wants to have Jaehwan here right now so he can crawl on top of him and kiss him and—

"You're reading my mind, aren't you?" Hakyeon growls, digging his fingers into Taekwoon's waist, making him jump. "Stop it."

"I cannot help it," Taekwoon murmurs back, closing his eyes. There's a strange heat on his cheeks, his neck, and he realises this must be what they call blushing. The images in Hakyeon's head are very explicit and very private, so with difficulty he pulls himself out of there and back into his own mind... Although he still feels hot all over.

They lie there like that for a while, not saying anything, and slowly Hakyeon's breath slows and he falls back into sleep. When he rolls over, Taekwoon follows, ending up pressed against his back with a wing resting over them both. This time, when he touches Hakyeon's face, he sees what he's dreaming of, and it's so pure it makes his heart hurt: lying in a sunny meadow with Jaehwan, staring at each other's faces and holding hands.

This time, when Hakyeon wakes, he rolls over in alarm to find Taekwoon crying gently into his shoulder, and pulls him into a hug. All Taekwoon can feel is concern, concern for _him_ , and that just makes him feel worse, somehow. After a millennium of being numb—as all angels are meant to be—he's suddenly finding emotions, and he wishes he hadn't. This _hurts_. The knowledge that he will never have what Hakyeon has, a love so soft and pure that it shines through his pores, is so painful that he sobs helplessly with the weight of it.

"What's wrong? Hey, Taekwoon," Hakyeon murmurs, grasping Taekwoon's chin and tilting his head up gently so they can lock eyes. "Tell me. What's wrong?"

"I feel _everything_ ," Taekwoon weeps.

Hakyeon clearly has no idea what to do; when they're touching as much as they are—and they're practically intertwined—his thoughts almost drown out Taekwoon's own. But he just holds Taekwoon close, stroking his hair and whispering sweet nothings into his skin, letting Taekwoon cling to him and cry and cry and cry for what seems like hours. Every time he thinks he is finished, a new wave of melancholy hits him: he will never know what it means to love, to live, to walk among mortals, to be _human_. He is a pretender, a fake, and all he wants is to back in Heaven so he can stop questioning who he is.

The last thing he feels before he drifts off to sleep, his exhausted body dragging him backwards, is Hakyeon pressing a kiss to his forehead and whispering an apology.

 _In the depths it is lonely_  
_And so many a tear flows_  
_And that is why the water_  
_in the seas is salty_  
Rammstein – Haifisch

**Author's Note:**

> the way I described this au to my friend sums it up perfectly, I think:  
>  _How much further can I get up my own ass ? Only time will tell_
> 
> Oh yeah, this series is set within the context of hakyeon and jaehwan being together, and sanghyuk and hongbin having a 썸, or being sort-of together but without really saying it.


End file.
